


Half Baked

by 3musketears



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Humor, M/M, Movie Night, Soft Goro Holiday 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3musketears/pseuds/3musketears
Summary: “What is this?” Goro asked.“It’s Smallmark’s holiday classic, The Christmas Tree, of course,” Akira replied. “They stream it on their channel every year.”Below the title on the box was the brand name and an emblem with a very small crown. Goro had never seen it before in his life. There was no way for him to tell if that was a greater indicator of the brand’s obscurity or his shelteredness. Given that they supposedly had their own television channel, likely the latter.“Is it good?”Akira grinned. “Nope.”Akira makes Goro watch a Hallmark Christmas movie with him. He likes it just as much as you think he would.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 117





	Half Baked

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays to all! I wrote all of this in the course of one day and I think I got possessed by the writing spirits or something.
> 
> Huge thanks to Crown for being my beta on such short notice!

Akira’s uncharacteristic willingness to give up his beloved cleaning duties made infinitely more sense once Goro laid eyes on the clutter that consumed their sink.

Even with a blade grazing his throat, he couldn’t assign names to all of the appliances hastily shoved in there. Whether that was the result of unsettling apathy to blades at his throat or domestic incompetence was anyone’s guess. Likely a recipe consisting of both cooked in a pan together with eggs and flour.

Having been banned from all cooking endeavors after an incident that the former thieves interpreted as him trying to kill Akira again, Goro didn’t really know when Akira had bought all of these in the first place. He was justifiably restricted to the dishes and silverware. The burnt up shell of their old rice cooker on the counter served as a reminder why.

Goro at least recognized the whisk attachments from an electric mixer. The smell of the substance caked onto them– concealed as it was by dish soap– was pleasant, sort of like the special December scents of shampoo that Akira had purchased not too long ago. He had smelled it in Akira’s hair before he ever saw the actual bottle, the foreign aroma getting him immediately hopeful that Akira had finally evolved past using those disgraceful three-in-one products. 

He exchanged his leather gloves for a pair that waited for him by the sink and started scrubbing. There were trays and tiny spoons and other items that he didn’t think he’d had in the house since he was very small. Momma hardly had the time or money to make baking a regular hobby, but every year in June he’d come to associate those funny little spoons with a birthday cupcake.

Baking. Akira was baking something that smelled sweet and homey like the new December shampoo in his hair. A holiday treat.

“You know there’s nothing in that cabinet.”

Goro had his hand on the doorknob when heard Akira’s voice from behind him. He slowly turned around with an angelic smile. 

“I was just trying to figure out where all of this goes,” he replied, grabbing a metal tray with his other hand and waving it around. “You know I never use this stuff.”

Akira– who was lounging on the couch with a very trashy-looking romance novel– placed his book down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That may be so, but I remember _you_ saying that would be our overflow cabinet for any medical shit that didn’t fit in the bathroom cabinet. That would be bandaids and sunscreen, not anything super important like medication. Unless you sliced your _gloved finger_ on a butter knife, you have no reason to be opening it.”

One glance at the sink confirmed that no sharper knives had been used that evening. Dammit. Goro giggled airily, dropping the tray to twirl a finger in his hair. His other hand remained on the door knob. “I forgot.”

“You? Forgetting?” Akira smirked darkly. “What kind of fool do you take me for?”

Despite himself, Goro matched that devious expression, dropping the innocence to revel in his guilt. “A foolish one.”

He swung the cabinet open and feasted his eyes on the prize. A plate of freshly baked cookies, cream colored with specks of what he suspected was cinnamon. With a maniacal laugh he snatched them off of the shelf and ran, hoping to make it to the bathroom and lock the door behind him.

A locked door wouldn’t stop Akira, especially not with how alarmingly adept at lockpicking he’d become. But it would buy Goro another time to get one in his mouth, and that was what really mattered. If Akira wanted to take it back, he’d have to kiss him. A double win, in Goro’s honest opinion.

Tragically, the size of their apartment made it impossible to reach any of the doors with locks without passing by Akira on the couch. Akira bolted upright, fully prepared to block him with whatever means necessary. That was fine; Goro could easily kick his shin or bite his arm to disarm him long enough to escape.

Except Akira knew all his tricks. As Goro was charging, Akira ducked down and swept him off his feet, causing him to drop the plate. Seran wrap kept the cookies safe from the cat-hair-covered carpet, but none of Goro’s squirming could make Akira release him.

“Those are for later,” Akira said, completely immune to all forms of protest. “And I know you wouldn’t be able to stop at just one, Mr. ‘I only eat sweets for my public image.’”

Goro groaned. “Will you ever let that go?”

“Nope. It’s cute that you were trying to seem all tough and cool.” Akira placed him down on the couch and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re really just a grumpy teddy bear who likes knives.”

“No, I never used a knife.” Goro stared at the cookies on the floor. Maybe if he thought about it hard enough, he could move them with his mind like in those old movies he loved as a kid. Seeing as Akira had decided to become a koala and claim Goro as his preferred tree, that was the only way he would get close to tasting them.

“Okay, a grumpy teddy bear with a gun,” Akira corrected. “That isn’t all that different.”

He could go on a tirade about how Akira was _wrong_ and the tactical uses of a gun and a knife were completely different. It was as simple as the distinction between close range and long range combat. Akira should know this, given his usage of both. Then again, Akira would see no issue with bringing a knife to a gunfight, so there would be no point.

While Goro greatly resented doing so, the best route would be to concede. Hell, maybe if he shut his mouth and acted like a good little boyfriend then Akira would be so generous as to allow him a cookie earlier than initially planned.

“Are you going to let me finish washing the dishes or do you intend to hold me captive until we go to sleep?” Goro asked.

Akira hummed thoughtfully. “The dishes can wait. I wanna watch a movie with you.”

Goro snorted. “Really?”

“Um. Yeah. You’re my boyfriend. We live together.” Akira lowered his voice and ran his hands gently through Goro’s hair. “Of _course_ I want to do things with you, honey.”

The fact that Akira immediately assumed that the cause of Goro’s skepticism was insecurity spoke a bit too much to their understanding of each other than Goro really wanted to acknowledge right now. But he could still quietly acknowledge to himself that Akira’s concern was touching.

“No, no, that’s not it. I’m fine,” Goro said. “But I always talk over them and nitpick everything to death. Are you sure you want to put up with that for two hours?”

Now it was Akira’s turn to snort. “Are you kidding? Do I _want_ to? Goro, listening to you talk is the best part.” Akira turned his face away and started fiddling with his curly dark fringe. That didn’t stop Goro from noticing the dusting of pink on his cheeks. “I’ve already seen this movie anyway, so you wouldn’t be ruining it or anything like that. I picked it because I wanna hear what you have to say.”

That last part made Goro heat up a bit himself. “Oh.” He cleared his throat and turned away himself. “So you’re willing to deal with crusted-on cookie dough tomorrow just to hear me talk for two hours?”

Akira’s smile made the light displays outside look dreary and dull. “Absolutely. Hold on.” He released Goro and headed towards their room, swiping up the cookie tray along the way. Goddammit.

When he returned, it was with a DvD in his hand. Goro recognized the sticker from the rental place in Shibuya on the spine. He couldn’t see well enough to make out the title though. Akira was awfully fond of remarking that Goro probably needed his stupid fake glasses more than he did.

Resting the plate of cookies down on the small table on the side of the couch furthest from Goro, Akira reclaimed his clinging spot and displayed the movie proudly. 

_The Christmas Tree_. Oh god. The prospect of watching his first holiday movie was admittedly a bit exciting, but the box cover didn’t give him much hope for the quality of the film itself. It didn’t look cheaply made or anything like that, it just seemed to be severely lacking a soul. Just a bit contrary to the “holiday spirit” and whatnot.

“What is this?” Goro asked.

“It’s Smallmark’s holiday classic, _The Christmas Tree_ , of course,” Akira replied. “They stream it on their channel every year.”

Below the title on the box was the brand name and an emblem with a very small crown. Goro had never seen it before in his life. There was no way for him to tell if that was a greater indicator of the brand’s obscurity or his shelteredness. Given that they supposedly had their own television channel, likely the latter. 

“Is it good?”

Akira grinned. “Nope.” 

He leaned forward to grab a few of the tv remotes, eventually getting to a screen similar to the box art after swapping through a few of them. To this day, Goro had no idea what all but one of them did. 

“I already put the DvD in while you were out,” Akira explained. “I kinda suspected that you might find the cookies. I know how smart you are, Mr. Detective.”

“If you’d just cleaned up your own baking mess I never would’ve known.”

“Maybe I wanted you to. Chasing you is fun, you make the funniest squealing noises,” Akira teased.

Goro scoffed, but he couldn’t suppress the smile creeping onto his face. “You just love to torment me, don’t you? Holding me hostage to watch a mediocre film and luring me into a chase just to watch me scream.”

“No comment.” Akira’s smirk was all the answer one could possibly need.

He pressed play and Goro braced himself for whatever frosted hell awaited him behind the sparkly title screen. The film opened on a woman in an office, seemingly working after hours judging from the lack of other people there. Or maybe they used too much of their budget on other aspects of the movie to afford hiring more actors to sit in the background. If he had to guess, most of the money probably went into Christmas decor.

Another woman appeared and asked her why she– now given the name Kayleigh– was staying up at one in the morning working on this project. From his own experience, Goro assumed the answer was quite simple: depression. Kayleigh seemed to disagree, loudly insisting that she couldn’t stop until she finished working on this project.

“Does she ever actually define what her project is or is it just a sloppy plot device used to quickly establish her as a workaholic?” Goro asked.

Akira just laughed. “You’re catching on quickly.”

The other woman probably had a name, but Kayleigh said it so briefly that by the time the scene was over, he still had no idea what it was. Until he got an answer, he was just going to call her best friend lady. If his previous comment was any indication, that was all her role would ever chalk up to throughout the whole damn run time. 

Kayleigh went home at three in the morning where her very generic boyfriend named Hunter was watching sports. They had a very bland and basic conversation about how her staying at work meant she wasn’t spending as much time with him. She insisted that she just needed to finish her project. He asked if her project was more important than him.

“While the intent of getting her to stop overworking herself seems pure enough, trying to make her abandon her duties through guilt tripping is not.” Goro gestured towards the screen. “Judging from the size of this house, Hunter seems well off enough. Clearly she isn’t working because she needs to. It’s all for her own self-fulfillment, which is why this project is so meaningful to her. For him to say she should prioritize him over her work is to say that his satisfaction trumps her independence.”

“You’re reading a whole lot more into these movies than Smallmark did.”

Goro raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes.” Akira lunged over to the table with the cookies and handed him one. “Here. They’re called snickerdoodles, in case you fall in love and want to buy some more.”

Why the hell would Goro buy them when Akira’s smelled _that_ good. “Wait. Really?” Oh no, they smelled even better up close. “What happened to saving them for later?”

Something was happening on screen, but he frankly cared a hell of a lot more about snickerdoodles than Kayleigh from Smallmark. Akira shrugged. “I was just waiting for you to do something cute. Your face gets all scrunched up when you’re thinking really hard.”

If overthinking was all it took to get a cookie, he could’ve had the whole plate in his hands by now. That was the thing he was really good at! Often at his own expense! Instead of dignifying Akira’s comments with a reply, Goro took the cookie and bit into it.

Holy fuck.

“I will do the dishes every day for a week if you make more of these.”

“Is that a promise?”

“No.” Goro took another bite, this time smaller so he could make the cookie last longer. When he was little he used to do that because he was starving. It was a nice change to be able to savor food just because he wanted to these days.

“You eat like a rabbit.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to watch your shitty movie,” Goro said before taking another nibble. The combination of sugar cookie and cinnamon sugar was just right, the flavors mixing easily like a practiced dance routine. It was a perfect mix of soft and crunchy too. He wouldn’t be able to get near Akira and his stupid fluffy hair without thinking about it now.

In the time when he’d been distracted by the cookies, the scenery had completely changed from a busy city to a snowy town covered in lights. “Why the hell is she here now?”

The music swelled and the camera spun around Kayleigh’s head to give the audience a full view of the new setting in all its festive glory. It was probably one of the more interesting shots thus far, but the result was a bit dizzying rather than awe inspiring. There was still no answer from Akira. Goro turned to him expectantly. “Haven’t you seen this movie?” he asked.

“These all kinda blur together in my mind into one bigger, more powerful Smallmark Christmas movie,” Akira admitted.

“There are _more_?!” Just one was bland enough! More of these movies would be like a sandwich with more bread in place of other, more interesting ingredients.

Kayleigh walked around cutesy Christmas town with a look of disdain that left even Goro, the inventor of disdainful looks, confused about its origin. It could be chalked up to bad acting, but then her face just stayed like that. If it was indeed a valid character choice, it likely had to do with being torn away from her precious project.

The question of _why_ this random business woman got shipped off to the North Pole still bothered him. Did she have relatives here? Was she part elf?

Goro’s second theory was quickly debunked by the completely normal people populating this town. Smallmark didn’t seem the type to have some edgy modern take on elves either, so no pointy ears meant no tiny fantasy people.

No relatives showed up in the following scene, but a man wearing three different kinds of plaid in the same outfit did. This was Bradley, a lumberjack who spends his time chopping down Christmas trees to sell to people.

Akira had been the one to go pick up their little tree. The landlord only allowed artificial ones and they didn’t have the budget to get enough ornaments to fill a larger tree, but it still looked very cute sitting in the corner. Besides the TV, its soft yellow glow was the only thing illuminating the room.

They both hadn’t the slightest idea what they would do with it once the holidays came and went though. Apartments of this size didn’t exactly come with an overwhelming amount of storage space. Maybe Okumura could spare some space in her frighteningly large house for a little plastic evergreen.

Bradley over here didn’t use fake ones though. If his sole occupation was preparing Christmas trees, then what the hell was he doing for the other eleven months of the year? The whole town seemed too goody-goody to be in the deforestation business.

“Christmas trees are not a sustainable year-round business,” Goro said. “He’s going to starve.”

“There’s a theory online that all of the Bradleys are spirits who cease to exist except during the month of December,” Akira explained. “That’s why Christmas is his entire personality.”

“Christmas isn’t a personality. It’s a day.”

Akira pushed his glasses up, the frames glinting in the light of the tv. “You haven’t met a Bradley yet.”

Kayleigh’s resting bitch face became warranted once Bradley started talking to her. Just watching him try to sweet talk her into baking cookies with him made Goro want to punch him in the face. Then again, given Goro’s cooking abilities or lack thereof, perhaps the more vengeful thing to do would be accepting the invitation. 

Bradley was too flat; his nice guy attitude came off as phonier than their plastic tree. And at least the tree wasn’t wearing clashing plaids. Flirting in the name of Christmas spirit seemed somewhat sleazy too.

“His character seems...half baked.” They pulled their cookies out of the oven and Goro winced. “As do their cookies.”

“You’re gonna hate what they do next,” Akira warned.

Sure enough, Goro did hate it. They started throwing flour at each other for absolutely no reason. No aspect of their relationship previously had warranted or earned this sudden childish competition. Maybe if either of them had shown a petty streak it would have made sense, but Smallmark didn’t develop their characters outside of workaholic woman and Christmas man.

“They’re making a huge mess and wasting perfectly good resources,” Goro complained. “They could be using that flour to make cookies that aren’t just raw dough with a slight tan.”

“Or they could be letting the original cookies sit in the oven longer,” Akira added.

“And how many takes do you think this scene took! At least more than one, right?” He looked back at the screen. “Actually, forget I said that. This is definitely the first take.” Akira laughed and gave him a second snickerdoodle.

The camera suddenly cut to a kitchen covered in flour, with Bradley and Kayleigh sitting on the floor. Somehow, the flour stains on their clothes were still there, but their hair and faces were completely clean. Because God forbid the leads not be made up perfectly at all times.

Bradley asked her why she didn’t like Christmas. Which was basically asking why she didn’t like him. In a moment of wholly unearned vulnerability, Kayleigh took a deep breath and dropped the biggest bombshell in all of cinematic history.

_“My parents and siblings and dog were all killed on Christmas.”_

Goro choked on his snickerdoodle. “Fucking hell.”

He couldn’t hear whatever bullshit half-apology Bradley was making over him coughing and Akira fussing like a mother hen, but he was sure it was terrible and somehow even more awkward than the tough one-on-one conversations he’d had with Okumura and Futaba about murdering their parents. Which was no small feat, but certainly not a point of pride.

Despite how physically painful that entire sequence of scenes was to watch, apparently it brought the two of them closer. And Kayleigh learned how to make a new facial expression because that’s how character development works in Smallmark world. This one looked like it was supposed to be a lovestruck smile, except this woman’s soul had been sucked out by the script so it just looked empty

There was a montage of the two of them doing Christmas preparations together, all with this weird and unnecessary filter making things look hazy. To make things more interesting for himself, Goro took this as evidence for the theory that Bradley was a Christmas spirit. The probability that Smallmark writers were creative enough to make the movie with that in mind was slim, but it was fun to pretend that every weird directorial decision was a clue instead of a blunder.

Christmas Eve arrived and Kayleigh was inexplicably chosen to uphold the town’s year long tradition of having a citizen light up their cartoonishly large Christmas tree that towered over all of the buildings. Unless it had been while Goro was choking, he was pretty sure this tradition hadn’t been mentioned at all up until ten seconds ago. Sloppy writing strikes again.

The supposed tradition never said anything about a speech, but Kayleigh put on her empty smile and started spewing some unnatural bullshit about how this little town– which she never called by name– had changed her whole view of Christmas and therefore her life.

Goro frowned. “There is so much wrong with this speech.”

Akira leaned his head against Goro’s shoulder. “Do enlighten me.” He waved a third cookie in front of Goro’s face.

“Gladly. For starters, no one asked her to start talking. If I was one of these kids here, I would be furious.” Goro pointed towards the pathetically small crowd of people in the pseudo-audience. “I just came here to see the giant tree, not to hear this woman who isn’t even from here talk about how my dumb town changed her life. What if me or my equally tired mother was supposed to be the tree lighter but the horny Christmas spirit kicked me out to make way for this woman he met three days ago?”

“You’d be living up to your reputation as a gun-wielding teddy bear,” Akira replied.

“No, I wouldn’t shoot her. Not in front of all these people. It would be far more devastating for me to dismantle her dumb speech in public. All it would take is me pointing out that she doesn’t even know what the town’s name is and her non-existent reputation here would be ruined!”

On cue, the tree lit up and people started cheering, though it sounded more like they were celebrating Goro’s fierce verbal dismantling of this outsider who took over their ceremony because of heterosexuality. Akira joined in, laughing and handing over the sugary reward while Kayleigh and Bradley kissed for no reason.

“Congratulations. You survived a Smallmark movie,” Akira declared.

With the cookie half in his mouth, Goro looked at the screen to see the camera zooming away from the Christmas festivities as the credits began to roll. “Wait. That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“But there are so many loose ends! Kayleigh is cheating on her boyfriend who she _lives with_ with a Christmas spirit man she met three days ago. That’s a huge deal!” Goro exclaimed. “Exploring that conflict would be far more compelling and dramatic than this ending or the forced dead parents reveal.”

Akira chimed in. “Don’t forget her siblings and her dog.”

Goro put the cookie on his lap, grabbed a soft pillow covered in cat hair, and violently screamed into it. Akira patted his back all the while. When his screams of agony ceased, he made a vow. 

“I’m leaving a very strongly worded bad review and putting it on every possible site for the world to see.”

He took the cookie with him and ran out of the room to go get his laptop. Even without lights on, he could navigate to where it was waiting on his desk. But on his way out, he saw two blue eyes peering through the dark at him. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Goro asked, awkwardly standing in the doorway.

Morgana just said, “He made you watch the movie didn’t he.”

“It sucked.”

“I know. That’s why I was _trying_ to go to sleep, but _someone_ is a really loud complainer.” In normal light, Morgana glaring at him wouldn’t have been scary at all. But when those eyes were the only thing he would see, it was the stuff of nightmares.

“I have a lot of opinions,” Goro replied. If Morgana had any gripes with Goro talking over movies, he would have to take them up with Akira, known instigator and trickster extraordinaire. “Akira provoked me. Go be mad at him.”

There was a brief silence. “No, that would mean being in a room with both of you at once.”

“You live with us.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to watch him kiss you.”

Admittedly, that was fair. “I’m going to leave now,” Goro announced, because he had no idea how else to end this aimless conversation.

Morgana knew exactly how to end it. “Bye.”

Goro returned to the couch with his laptop and booted it up. Akira was quick to attach himself to him once more, draping his arms over Goro’s shoulders and nuzzling up against his cheek. With a sigh, Goro gave him a quick kiss and started typing.

He often agonized over his words, deliberating carefully how to portray himself a certain way in a conversation, designing his sentences so that people could only glean information about him that he wanted them to have. His silences were the same, if he had nothing smart to say then he wouldn’t say anything at all. Impulsivity was the enemy of crafting an image.

None of that applied right now. Online he would be anonymous, only traceable by the likes of Futaba, who would probably just find the whole thing immensely humorous. She wasn’t one of the people Goro wanted to put on a facade for anyway; she’d seen him go off the shits.

And off the shits he would be, turning his stream of consciousness into a typhoon that would undoubtedly put Smallmark underwater. He would compose a review so scathing that their stale bread loaf of a film might become toast just by being linked to such a piece of prose. 

Every sloppy writing decision and bizarre creative decision would be catalogued in chronological order so that one could follow his review while watching the movie and experience his frustrations as he had in real time. One of the thieves– likely Sakamoto or Takamaki– had once joked that he should “roast” people for a living. At the time he’d been dismissive, but he hadn’t considered the multitude of people out there who make money criticizing things. Perhaps movie reviews were his calling, though he didn’t know how his professors would feel about him saying so.

By the time his review was complete, Akira was fast asleep on his shoulder. That would undoubtedly lead to neck cramps in the morning. Goro saved his work and rested his laptop on their coffee table. Somehow, he managed to lift Akira up enough to drag him to bed without disturbing him.

Morgana dutifully moved out of the way when Goro all but tossed Akira on top of the blankets. He was even considerate enough to help Goro pry them out from under Akira’s body and tuck the sleepy mophead in. The two of them exchanged a look before settling into bed themselves, finally free of all Smallmark-related hindrances.

While Goro’s consciousness faded, his laptop remained on the coffee table with the screen on. The opening lines of his new document were as follows:

_Dear Smallmark Entertainment,_

_Having viewed your 2011 Christmas film– which is one of many from my understanding– in its entirety, I have come to the following conclusions:_

_1) You keep your writers in a cave where they eat nothing but unsalted crackers until they have managed to pump out a plagiarised script of their own previous works._

_2) You don’t actually have writers, you have programmers who are perfecting an AI that makes only one script with just enough variations that you can slap a new title on it every single time._

_3) Your AI has even less understanding of human beings than I do. And I had no friends for eighteen fucking years._

_4) You are completely unable to form a compelling narrative so instead you rely on the same tired tropes– which were never good to begin with– inserted in a formula that comes premade with egregious plot holes and a glorification of cheating on romantic partner for the sake of Christmas or some other contradictory immoral bullshit._

_Allow me to elaborate on each of these offenses in immense detail. I am aware of the similarity between the second and fourth, but the way these films reek of manufactured capitalist bullshit is so potent that I needed to put it twice._

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are really appreciated!!!


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